Step 1: Step 1 - The Base

First, you'll need a base layer. I used knee-high socks, and highly recommend, but you can also use the tall calf-length socks. Ankle socks will NOT work.

Step 1 -- Put your foot in a sock.

Step 2: Step 2 - The Barrier

Next, you'll need a couple recycled grocery sacks, or some garbage bags. Don't use Ziploc bags, they don't bunch right and end up being uncomfortable and not really protective.

Step 2 -- Put that sock in a bag.

Step 3: Step 3 - The Outer Layer

Next, you'll need another pair of knee-high (or calf-length) socks. Put those on over the grocery sack.

Step 3 -- Put that bag in a sock.

Step 4: Step 4 - The Pull-down

The last step to weather-proofing a foot is to cover it with a pant! The type of pant is not terribly important, but jeans work well to provide a little bit of buffer between when the snow hits your pants and when you can feel it through the sock/sack barrier.

Step 5: Step 5 - Gettin Jiggy Wit' It

The first foot was lonely. Be a doll and go make another one to keep it company, will ya?

Step 6: Shoes!

After a comment in which someone didn't realize that shoes are needed to complete the project, I am now demanding that you add shoes on top of your socks and bags!

If your base sock layer is wool, these work just fine since the wool stays warm when wet. I don't think the author is suggesting this as a permanent solution as a substitute for boots or one for a long trek :-) I think it's a great idea in a pinch & have seen it used since I was a child without anyone having their feet freeze off :-)

Is the intent to wear these without a shoe or boot? That will surely wear out a pair of socks pretty quick (maybe not in "pure" soft powdery snow), but if you encounter ice, or twigs (under the snow), or whatever. OTOH, your normal shoes might not fit on top of the socks and bags, and leather shoes would be very subject to damage from getting wet.

Sneakers you can let get wet and then dry later.

It just seems like the instructable is unfinished. If the intent is to use the socks without some sort of outer shell, I think it should say so. (Or say not, and why.)

What isn't being explained is you are creating a vapor barrier, which has an insulating power. Your body heat is trapped inside the plastic bag and first sock. The next picture should show you putting on your regular pair of shoes.

I've done this with plastic wrap. You can pull it tight around your leg and up to your knee.

In the movie "Runaway Train" Jon Voight and Eric Roberts prepared to escape the Alaska prison out in the frozen wilderness by first wrapping their bodies with big rolls of cellophane before putting on their clothes. Same principle. They died not from the cold but from defects of character and a self-imposed destiny of doom. Your instructable is more inspiring.

When I was growing up in Kansas, Colorado, and Idaho in the 60s and 70s we often did the same thing with large "family size" bread sacks and calf high socks. Wearing a double layers of jeans, the outer baggier, would also help a lot as the outer layer would get stiff with ice and the inner would tend to stay dry. Back then we kept all kinds of bags and containers food came in just for uses such as these. Used to make toy flying saucers to play with using pot pie tins and staples etc. Then someone invented "moon boots" and everyone wanted a pair and the bread sacks accumulated without much use, lol.